The primary uses for bar charts are to show: volume (x axis) and ranking (y axis). The secondary use for bar charts is as an alternative to column charts when the labels are text heavy and space is a constraint.

To appropriately show ranking, the largest number should be on top and the least at the bottom. If there is an "other" category or "all others," these should be the last bar and not ranked among the others. There are several other variables that you should review in the tutorial.

Look carefully at the charts below before selecting one to download. Different layouts are available, depending on labels and/or units of measures and whether they are the same for all the bar charts. The tutorial will also help in this area.

Because this series has text in it, the text will import into your presentation according to your defaults. If you have bullet points as your top level of text, the text in these charts will import with bullet points. This is one of the reasons that we advocate for the top level of text in the master being nonbulleted, left-aligned text, followed by bulleted, indented text. Important: see the tutorial for tips on sizing, coloring, and text formatting, etc. Also, see the FAQ topic entitled Working with data-driven templates for other important information about this category.